


Mirrors + Gabapentin - Jack

by TetrodotoxinB



Series: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010), MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Because not everyone who loves each other has to have sex, Crying, Cutting, Day 11, Electro-shock torture, Mac and Jack are platonic soulmates, On-label prescription drug use, Soulmate AU, Steve and Danny are romantically involved, Whumptober 2020, beatings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:27:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26952865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: Jack is in trouble when he's on a solo mission and Mac suffers with him through their soulbond.
Relationships: Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Series: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947493
Comments: 22
Kudos: 50
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Mirrors + Gabapentin - Jack

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [aravenwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/pseuds/aravenwood) for her extreme kindness in being willing to beta all of these whumptober fills! Especially so since she's also writing her own (amazing!) fics too! Please go check her out and give her some love!!!
> 
> Also thanks to [Icoulddothisallday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icoulddothisallday/pseuds/icoulddothisallday) for letting me riff off of her soulmate world building. Furthermore, this is for her because she's my platonic soulmate. Sometimes we love people and they are the people who make us whole, but sex simply doesn't matter. <3 <3 <3

Mac wakes gasping, pain blossoming across his left cheek and a healthy dose of terror fueling his quickening heart rate. It takes a moment to orient himself and then to realize the source of it all — Jack. Or rather his soulbond with Jack, which means that’s Jack’s in trouble. 

There’s a tingle on his right cheek and now that Mac’s awake he knows what’s coming — within another second his cheek aches and throbs like the left. Mac feels Jack’s desperation and frustration bleed across the bond as he fumbles for his phone, but the sensation makes his eyes water, blurring his vision. 

“Why are you calling me at three am, MacGyver?” Matty grumbles into Mac’s ear.

“Matty,” Mac says, his head now pounding. “Jack’s in trouble. Someone’s-” Mac pauses as a blow lands on Jack’s ribs, and Mac has to breathe through the mirrored pain. “Someone’s beating the crap out of him. Can you get a team in there to extract him?”

“Shit. Okay, you hang in there for a minute. I’ll send someone to pick you up now but I need to go to make some calls.”

His phone beeps as the call ends, and Mac staggers out of bed to get into some regular clothes. Several more hits land across his face and torso, and by the time a ride shows up, Mac’s breathing heavy and trying not to groan with every step. The driver sees Mac hobbling towards the car, his arm around his stomach, and immediately comes around to help him.

“Director Weber said Agent Dalton was in trouble and that you needed help. How bad is it?” he asks.

Mac lets himself be lowered into the front seat of one of the Phoenix’s many white Impalas, and tries to relax as his driver goes around to his seat. “Whoever he’s with is beating the hell out of him, but I don’t think it’s escalated past that.”

The man nods and then puts the car in gear, hurrying them to headquarters.

*****

With Riley and Bozer’s help, Mac staggers in the War Room where Matty’s waiting. She frowns at Mac’s state — grimacing, labored breathing, and bit off balance — and points to a chair. 

“Sit, blondie.”

He doesn’t have to be told twice, and collapses into the chair looking at the map projected on the wall. 

“Based on Dalton’s GPS, he’s located here, in a compound two miles from the coast of James Bay. According to his latest intel and our current satellite imagery, there's no way to approach the compound by road due to the various manned checkpoints. Due to the heavily wooded area around the compound, it would be less than ideal to move a large team in that way and it increases our chances of being caught.”

Mac can already see what the problems are. “You can’t airlift a team in because we’ll lose the element of stealth entirely and they’ll kill Jack before we ever breach. You need a strike team, five men at most. They need to go in light. If they do it right, they can retreat to an exfil point there,” Mac points to a small clearing about a mile southwest of the carpool. “And airsupport can pick them from there.”

Matty nods. “Exactly. The problem is that both of the strike teams we would send in for this mission are already deployed. Our remaining men are second-string only and this mission is too important to pass down the chain. I called in a couple favors and two ex-special operators plus their civilian partner are coming in on this one.”

It’s definitely against protocol what he’s about to say, but he’s not sure he can sit this one out.“You need us,” he says simply. 

Matty nods solemnly. “We do. I know Jack’s in bad shape, and it’s obviously affecting you. So I need you to be honest with me, can you operate like this?”

Mac takes a moment to focus on the bond — he’s hurting but not so much that he can’t think, and he’s agitated but no more than he was in the Sandbox, trying to disarm bombs while bullets whizzed over his head. “I think, barring something catastrophic happening, I should be fine.”

Matty nods. “Our new friends should be here in two hours. You’re wheels up as soon as the plane is refueled and ready for take off.”

*****

The plane ride is not a short one. From LA to Quebec is six hours but before they even clear LA’s airspace Jack is taking another beating. Mac closes his eyes and tries to breathe through the pain — split lip, cracked ribs, a groin shot that leaves Mac dry heaving — but it’s not easy with Jack’s growing fear and desperation bleeding across the bond.

“Hey, Mac. How’re you doing?” Riley asks, closing her laptop.

Mac swallows and opens his eyes, tears rolling down his cheeks. “It’s getting a little rough, Riles. I’m starting to get really worried.”

Across from them, Steve nods his head and Mac sees Danny and Junior exchange glances. “How bad a shape is he in? Do you think we’re gonna need medevac at exfil?” Steve asks.

A tingle, and then a deep, sharp pain across Mac’s chest, and he doubles over screaming. Mac doesn’t even notice Steve move but he grabs Mac by the shoulders, holding him in his seat so that he doesn’t fall, his thumbs rubbing small circles in Mac’s skin. 

“Breathe, Mac. Nice, deep breaths,” Steve soothes, and slowly the bright flash of initial pain ebbs to a sharp ache. “Good. Can you tell me what happened?”

“They carved into his chest, knife I think,” Mac explains. His head is still swimming with fear and anger and adrenaline, and it’s hard to think clearly. Beside him, Riley cringes but she says nothing. 

Danny rubs his hands over his face. “Mac, do you think it would help to take a blocker?” 

Mac’s head snaps up, his tears clouding his eyesight. “I- Jack and I don’t do that.”

Danny nods. “Look, I get that. I don’t like them either. I don’t think anyone who’s bonded really enjoys it. But Steve’s been hurt before, sometimes really badly.” Mac can read between the lines — Steve’s been tortured. “And I’ve been where you are, and it is not easy. And sometimes you have to make choices that suck. Do you wanna be available physically and mentally to help get him back, or are you going to let what he’s going through debilitate you and get both killed?” 

Gabapentin, or a “blocker,” is a front line med for bonded pairs in major accidents or who are experiencing mental health crises; it’s a way to mute the sensations and emotions that come across the bond. But everyone has heard stories about the side effects — dizziness, nausea, confusion, and of course the horrible sensation of being partially separated from your soulmate. Mac and Jack, despite years of getting the everloving snot beat out of them, have never even talked about using them. But Jack’s not here to ask and Mac knows that if they don’t get Jack back in time none of it will matter anyway because they’ll both die — no one survives the loss of a soulmate.

“Yeah, alright,” Mac agrees. 

Junior grabs his backpack and pulls out his med kit. “Here you go. Take one and give it about thirty minutes to kick in.”

Mac dry swallows the tablet. Someone is digging something into the wound on Jack’s chest and it sends bolts of pain into his shoulder, Jack’s cracked ribs throbbing in time with his heartbeat. Mac keeps swallowing to keep the blocker down and closes his eyes. Steve stays next to him, holding him up and offering what little comfort he can. It’s not much, but Mac sends as much of that sensation to Jack as he can.

*****

The fuzzy edges of Jack’s pain and fear — fear that Mac can tell skyrocketed the moment the blocker kicked in — are like a pair of too tight shoes. They hurt and they’re a bit distracting, but with his focus elsewhere, Mac barely notices at all. It’s unsettling but the blockers have the handy side effect of easing anxiety so it works out well enough. 

They set Riley up in a panel van outfitted to her specs and leave her with some substantial firepower should it come to that. Then the four of them — Mac, Steve, Danny, and Junior — begin the long hike in. 

It takes nearly five hours to cross the taiga from their insertion point to the outskirts of the camp and Mac’s second dose of blockers is beginning to wear off. 

“You look like shit. Here,” Danny says, pressing another foil wrapped pill into Mac’s hand. Mac takes the pill, hoping that this dose can be his last. 

They scout the perimeter, Mac pausing to manage the increased feedback from the bond while he waits for the next dose of gabapentin to kick in. Jack’s getting roughed up pretty bad and while Jack likes to say that he’s “tough as an old leather boot,” Mac knows he’s as vulnerable as anyone else. He radios Riley to make sure that exfil has medical on board.

“Based on guard rounds and visibility, we need to make our entrance here,” Steve says, pointing at a spot on the tree line on a satellite map. “We’ll split into two teams, Danny and-”

The world implodes around Mac. If he thought blockers were bad, this is a thousand times worse. His entire body screams for a split second and then silence. Total absolute dead silence. Nothing comes across the bond — no pain, no fear, nothing. It’s just empty. Mac hasn’t felt this destitute since his mother died. Like the world suddenly stopped existing.

Time seems to stretch and thin and Mac completely loses track of where he is and what’s going on. All he can think of is JackJackJack _JackJACK!!!!_

“Mac, Mac!!” Steve whispers, the alarm in his voice growing. 

Finally, Mac’s body requires oxygen despite his current psychological crisis, and he’s forced to breathe. It’s enough to jar him out of his depersonalization spell. 

“Jack,” he rasps, anchored to the moment but still panicking. “He’s gone. There’s nothing. The bond is just gone.”

“He’s not gone,” Steve says, and the surety in his voice makes Mac pause.

“How- how do you-”

“Because you’re not dead, genius. If he was dead, you’d be dead, too,” Danny says.

It’s obviously true, but barring weird stuff like brain tumors, major trauma, or lightning strikes, Mac can’t think of anything that would cause this. “Then what- why?”

Steve shrugs, but Danny looks down at the ground. “Tasers don’t really do it, but sometimes other types of electric shock can, especially if they’re prolonged or high intensity.”

Steve turns and looks at Danny, his eyes worried. “Danny, did that happen when Wo Fat had me? Did you lose the bond?”

Danny nods. “It wasn’t long, maybe fifteen minutes. But at the end, when you both got shocked, right before we got there, it just blinked out. You were so out of it that you don’t remember.”

Mac can tell that Steve and Danny are going to talk more about it later, but Steve sets his jaw. “All the more reason we need to hurry.”

*****

Steve, Danny, and Junior are like a three-man wrecking crew, taking out anyone and everyone in their path. Mac handles the technical stuff — locked doors, electrical systems, CCTV — and it’s only a matter of minutes to find Jack. 

Jack’s tied to a chair, his face every shade of black and blue, his right eye swollen completely shut, his shirt missing to reveal cut after cut over his chest and shoulders, black pock marks that smell like charred flesh — clearly the electrical shocks Danny theorized to be the cause of their bond’s temporary absence. Mac cuts Jack free and then hoists his still unconscious body across his shoulders in fireman’s carry.

“Let’s go.”

The plan to hike out to exfil is long gone. They’d be hard pressed to make it through the forests carting someone in Jack’s condition, not to mention the risk to Jack from being jostled about. Instead, Mac, Jack, and Junior slip into the mess hall, a quonset hut type building made of corrugated steel, and Steve and Danny slip across the compound to the motorpool and filch a jeep. Since the search for them has no reason to include the mess, their exfil is without incident until they reach the outer gate. 

“Base is on lockdown. You’re supposed to remain at your stations until the intruders are apprehended,” the guard tells Steve. 

“I understand, will do,” Steve says. He puts the truck back in gear and guns it, nearly flattening another guard and blowing through the chain link fence. They fly down the road, careening towards exfil as gravel flies behind them.

“Riles, we’re coming in hot. Get to exfil stat,” Mac radioes her.

“They’re fifteen minutes out,” she informs him.

“Fifteen minutes?” Danny shouts. “We’re not gonna last that long.”

“Can we get an alternate exfil site?” Mac asks.

“I’m looking, gimme just a minute.... Found it. I’m texting you the coordinates now,” she informs them.

Mac hands off his phone to Danny, and turns his focus back to Jack. His pulse is steady, though too fast for Mac’s comfort. And he still hasn’t regained consciousness. 

Me remembers when they first bonded, when that initial punch got thrown and they each knew right then and there but were so damn angry that they had it out anyway. Each punch they threw hurt themselves just as much as the other. After it was over, when they’d been dressed down and lost the motivation to fight, they sat down side by side with just their knees touching because any distance between them was near agony. 

Mac feels like that now. Even though he can hear the approach of other vehicles, the need to touch Jack and reaffirm the bond is all-encompassing. He takes Jack’s hand in his own, gripping it tightly as Steve nearly sends both Mac and Junior tumbling when he takes a hairpin left turn far too quickly.

They’re coming up on the exfil site and Mac can feel the rotor downwash from the helo in his chest. The helo is touched down in a meadow just off the road, and Steve brakes hard making the jeep slide to a stop in the loose rock. They unload, Steve and Danny laying down cover fire on the two jeeps that have caught up with them, while Mac and Junior get Jack unloaded. This time Junior takes Jack because he can move faster than Mac, who’s not weak but who is definitely feeling the dizzying effects of the last blocker he took. 

A couple guys pop out of the helo to provide cover for Steve and Danny, and temporarily outnumbered, Jack’s former captors retreat. Seconds later they’re airborne and the medics get to work on Jack. It’s terrifying to watch. Dying in the Army was always a possibility, especially with the work he did. But once the stakes were upped, once it was possible that he and his best friend would die, well that added a whole new level of terror. It’s something Mac hasn’t felt in a long time but watching them cut away Jack’s clothes, seeing the new horrors revealed with each snip, Mac feels like the scared hamburger kid that no one but Jack even cared about. 

He squeezes Jack’s hand tight in his own and hopes.

*****

“Mac, can you stop hovering?” Jack snaps.

Mac has absolutely no intention of not hovering and says as much. Jack glares and bats weakly at Mac’s hands. Mac finishes readjusting the blankets on Jack’s hospital bed and then brings him his cup of water. “Drink. You need to stay hydrated.”

“Mac, I don’t wanna have to get up to pee,” Jack protests.

“Jack, you have a catheter, now drink the damn water,” Mac argues.

Jack does as Mac demands and then he waits until Mac has settled into the chair beside the bed before speaking. “Mac, what happened that’s got you so bent out of shape? We’ve both been hurt plenty of times, but you’ve never ended up this out of sorts. Talk to me.”

Mac looks down at his hands. He remembers the look of hurt on Steve’s face when Danny told him what had happened. Mac doesn’t want Jack to find out like that later. 

“When they shocked you, it temporarily severed the bond. It was like before we met; but instead of it just being me in my head it felt empty, cold. I- I was so scared I thought you’d died, obviously that doesn’t make a lot of sense because if you’d have died I would have, too. But it was like having half my soul carved out. It wasn’t until they stabilized you and you regained consciousness that it came back. I don’t ever wanna feel like that again, Jack.”

Mac sniffles and wipes away the tears that run down his cheeks. He’s not in love with Jack, it’s not like that — neither one of them bats for the same team — but either way, Jack is still the most important person in his life. Jack needs to know what’s going on with Mac, needs to understand, so Mac drops what little shielding he bothers to have with Jack and lets his hurt rush across the bond. Jack makes a muffled sort of a yelp when it hits, and Mac feels the rebound as Jack’s own emotional reaction to everything washes in. 

Jack gropes for Mac’s hand and they thread their fingers together. “I’m so sorry, Mac. I didn’t know.”

Mac shakes his head. “I’m the one who should be saying sorry. I didn’t even give you warning before I took the blockers. When you needed me most, I turned everything off.”

Jack shakes his head, tears on his cheeks too. “I know why you did it. I probably would have needed to, too. You did what you thought you had to to bring me home. That’s all I care about.”

Mac nods, knowing the truth of Jack’s words but still carrying the guilt of his actions. He feels like he ought to say more but between the two of them, with their combined hurts, there’s nothing to say that their bond doesn’t convey. 

Mac stays with Jack until the pain meds pull him back under, and then he quietly unfolds the wretched chair-bed contraption next to the hospital bed. Asleep and well medicated, Jack’s hurts are muted, and Mac’s own pains begin to subside. Safe and together, Mac finds sleep in a matter of minutes.


End file.
